Charlie came back into the bedroom, and now he was running. He was still stuffing the crumpled ones and fives from the soup-dish into the front pocket of his suntans. Sally scooped Baby LaVon up. She was fully awake now and could walk perfectly well, but Sally wanted her in her arms. She bent and snagged the tote-bag.

“Where we going, Daddy?” Baby LaVon asked. “I was aseepin.”

“Baby can be aseepin in the car,” Charlie said, grabbing the two suitcases. The hem of Sally’s slip flapped. His eyes still had that white, starey look. An idea, a growing certainty, began to dawn in Sally’s mind.

“Was there an accident?” she whispered. “Oh Jesus Mary and Joseph, there was, wasn’t there? An accident. Out there.”

“I was playing solitaire,” he said. “I looked up and saw the clock had gone from green to red. I turned on the monitor. Sally, they’re all—”

He paused, looked at Baby LaVon’s eyes, wide and, although still rimmed with tears, curious.

“They’re all D-E-A-D down there,” he said. “All but one or two, and they’re probably gone now.”

“What’s D-E-D, Daddy?” Baby LaVon asked.

“Never mind, honey,” Sally said. Her voice seemed to come to her from down a very long canyon.

Charlie swallowed. Something clicked in his throat. “Everything’s supposed to mag-lock if the clock goes red. They got a Chubb computer that runs the whole place and it’s supposed to be fail-safe. I saw what was on the monitor, and I jumped out the door. I thought the goddam thing would cut me in half. It should have shut the second the clock went red, and I don’t know how long it was red before I looked up and noticed it. But I was almost to the parking lot before I heard it thump shut behind me. Still, if I’d looked up even thirty seconds later, I’d be shut up in that tower control room right now, like a bug in a bottle.”